“David Lloyd George had been to Germany, and been so dazzled by the Führer that he compared him to George Washington. Hitler was a ‘born leader’, declared the befuddled former British Prime Minister.”

If gay marriage was OK … then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog.

Some people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.

Churchill knew instinctively what was wrong with communism – that it repressed liberty; that it replaced individual discretion with state control; that it entailed the curtailment of democracy, and therefore that it was tyrannous.

The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.

I want you to know that I have nothing against Orlando, though you are, of course, far more likely to get shot or robbed there than in London.

I love swimming in rivers, and well remember once jumping in at Chiswick.

We need to look at our nannying, mollycoddled, politically correct culture in my view, which stops kids from going out and playing competitive sport. I also think we need to look at the shear fatness of the regulations which control people who want to help kids play sport.

The meat in the sausage has got to be Conservative.

I am supporting David Cameron purely out of cynical self-interest.

Dark forces dragged me away from the keyboard, swirling forces of irresistible intensity and power.

We should celebrate immigrants and everything they do for our country.

My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.

Never in my life did I think I would be congratulated by Mick Jagger for achieving anything.

I lead a life of blameless domesticity and always have done.

We did everything we could to break down barriers that restrain poorest.

Yes, cannabis is dangerous, but no more than other perfectly legal drugs. It’s time for a rethink, and the Tory party – the funkiest, most jiving party on Earth – is where it’s happening.